Art is everywhere in the New Delhi house of gallerist Roshini Vadehra, from the Ravinder Reddy on the driveway to the Shilpa Gupta above the pool.

Art is everywhere in the New Delhi house of gallerist Roshini Vadehra, from the Ravinder Reddy on the driveway to the Shilpa Gupta above the pool.

When I reach Roshini Vadehra Kapoor’s home, on a calm August morning, the air is crisp, and diamond-like droplets of rain sparkle on the leaves of the frangipani, lime and neem trees surrounding the home—a visual delight complete with pebbled pathways, greenery, and quietude. Roshini shares this 11,000-square-foot home—located on the fringes of south Delhi—with her husband and two children. As I walk past the bright red sculpture of a female head by Ravinder Reddy, I can’t help but notice how sensitively the couple has integrated the foliage with the architecture of the house. “My husband was very particular that we cut no trees to build this house,” Roshini tells me in her gentle voice.

It’s been a hectic day already for this young director of Vadehra Art Gallery, which was started by her father Arun Vadehra, in 1987. Vadehra senior had taken a leap of faith in diversifying from his family’s construction business, and courtesy that leap Roshini was born into this art-loving family. Now armed with a business degree from Boston, she works on expanding the gallery’s reach and impact. She is an early riser, and constructs her days around the routines of her children, even as she works at the gallery and travels all over the world on work. “It’s hectic,” smiles Roshini, “but when I come home, I’m at peace, I’m happy.” The day we meet, she is juggling phone calls and meetings, and attending to her five-year-old son Rayan, while also being a gracious hostess. “Try the homemade chaat, and you must have lemonade,” she says warmly.

The entrance of the home features an artwork by MF Husain—a gift to Roshini—and a pink sculpture of Nandi (Shiva’s mount), by Arunkumar HG.

ART AS CELEBRATION Dressed in a pair of jeans, a white top and heels, Roshini is a picture of quiet confidence. She gives her home a quick once-over before sitting down in the living room for our interview, adjusting the Mrinalini Mukherjee sculpture resting on the centre table. “It was a wedding gift from the artist,” she says, her eyes shining. She points to a Gulammohammed Sheikh work—“also a wedding gift”—and later, as we walk through the home, I find that there is a story behind each artwork. There are works by Ram Kumar, Pablo Picasso, Atul Dodiya, and MF Husain (“he was like a grandfather to me…”), among others. Some commissioned for the gallery; the others gifted to her on special occasions—her 18th birthday, her wedding day, on the occasion of her children’s births, and on her husband’s 40th birthday, which the family recently celebrated.

“I wanted my home to be a reflection of the art we represent…yet it needed to be a home, not an art gallery,” Roshini says, adding, “If my house is all about art, the art, too, is about the house.” Her gaze shifts to a sculpture by Jitish Kallat that occupies the pride of place in her living room. “That space,” says Roshini, pointing to a wooden ledge near the ceiling where the sculpture sits, “was created specifically for the art.” Continuing the idea of the art being about the house is Shilpa Gupta’s text-and-light installation, While I Sleep, commissioned for the pool area. “When I relax near the pool, I think, ‘Oh my god, we’ve created a reality from this simple dream of having our own space’.”

In the living room, on the left, is an oil-on-canvas by Tyeb Mehta; the side table displays a prototype rhinoceros sculpture by Jagannath Panda, designed as a reference for a larger work; artist Jitish Kallat’s sculpture—made from dental plaster—rests on a wooden ledge specially created for it; on the far right is a bronze sculpture by A Ramachandran; the cabinet is from a limited-edition range of furniture from Kynkyny Home, Bengaluru; the carpet is from The Carpet Cellar, and the furniture is from Tarun Vadehra.

STARTING SMALL There must be many such moments, considering the couple first moved in with just a bed (which they’ve had since their wedding day) and a cot (from when their younger child was six months old). The land had been with Roshini’s husband for a long time, and the house was built by ALVA Architects over a quick two years. Two aspects were critical while designing this home. The first, as the project’s architect Ashwin Alva describes it, was to build the house with the trees, not just around it. The second was that the materials used needed to enhance the art rather than overpower it. “In a sense, we were harking back to mid-1960s modernism when most of south Delhi was built. The existing trees were used as far as possible as natural shading devices,” explains Alva.

Today, the home is spread over two floors, has well-tended gardens, airy outdoor areas, a pool, spectacular art, and floor-to-ceiling windows that let in the perfect amount of light to view it by. The corridors are marble—the flooring, wooden and warm, giving the home a feeling of openness and understated luxury. The ground floor houses the pool, the living and dining rooms, a kitchen and a guest bedroom, while the first floor houses the couple’s bedroom, their children’s rooms, and another extra room.

The largest canvas in Roshini’s bedroom is an artwork by Gulammohammed Sheikh; Anju Dodiya’s watercolour titled Hug—by the window—was the first work acquired by Roshini when she joined the business; to the right of Sheikh’s canvas is a watercolour by Atul Dodiya; Roshini bought the tea set in gold finish on a trip to Morocco.

Knitting the spaces together is Roshini’s design sensibility, a happy consequence of a childhood spent surrounded by art and artists. “I grew up in a joint family in a house in Greater Kailash with my father’s parents, and his two brothers. That was a smaller place but I still remember the excitement when my father would bring home artworks… when artists like MF Husain and Ram Kumar would come home for dinner, and there would be intense discussions on art, when we would decide which artwork went where. I am glad to be creating similar memories for my children in our home today,” says Roshini, as she observes Rayan playing with his toys on the couch nearby.

We wind up our discussion and I walk down the pathway, turning to take one last look at the family. Framed perfectly by the entrance of their home are Roshini, her children, her husband and the red Ravinder Reddy sculpture, looking no less than a work of art themselves. If home is where the heart is, Roshini’s is very evidently right here.

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Because architect Ashwin Alva wanted to integrate greenery into the home, no trees were cut and five neem trees became an intrinsic part of the home’s design and aesthetic. The fibreglass sculpture is by Ravinder Reddy.

Alva used the timber fins to allow varying amounts of sunlight inside at different times of the day. The family sometimes dines in the outdoor area below, which also doubles up as a space for larger social gatherings.

The red Uncle Phone installation at the entrance is by artist duo Pors & Rao; the watercolour by Arpita Singh was an engagement present from Roshini’s parents.

The dining table is a prized possession—made of New Zealand kauri wood that’s over 30,000 years old; the canvas is by Subodh Gupta.

The book on the prayer stand is a multimedia artwork by Sheba Chhachhi.

The abstract work in red is by New Delhi-based artist Sheila Makhijani—a wedding gift from the artist to Roshini and her husband; Atul Dodiya gifted the watercolour on the left to Maahin, Roshini’s younger son, when he was born; the boat bed was designed by Sunita Vadehra.

The ground-floor powder room.

This artwork is by Atul Dodiya, from his iconic shutter-themed series.